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Originally Posted by Daman  They adhere to the social contract of their own culture. As such I believe they should be left alone by the rest of us. Sadly, that doens't always happen in reality.
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Agreed.... but this opens the question, what standards to we hold another sentient being to.
Ok, the neanderthals aren't a case in point here, because most likely theyd be raised in a controlled environment, and carefully enculturated.
Aimees hypothetical squidmans social contract could be entirely alien to our own. But I'd say he still deserves the right to be treated as hav ing "human" rights. (maybe we should say Sophont's rights
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Originally Posted by Daman T
I heard that you can live in the Amazon without paying rent. Over here we have a different social contract though.
Not saying they are less human, but they are criminals and should be treated as such.. |
In England and Wales, squatters have rigfhts, and aren't stricly speaking criminals in every circumstance.
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Originally Posted by Daman And for the record, I don't think we should raise the neanderthals back to life, unless we can give them a piece of land that is all theirs to do with as they want. |
They'd have no cultural frame of reference, assuming they were recreated.
They'd most likely imprint from, and identify with whatever culture they wewre recreated in.
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Originally Posted by Aimee Weber First, your implication that I am describing people as "less than human" is exactly opposite of what I have been saying in every single post. You couldn't have gotten my words more wrong if you simply reversed all the letters.
As for paying rent, I was going with Beau's example of an apartment in LA. If a Brazilian has no interest in paying rent in LA, they don't have a right to that prime piece of real estate. Western civilization invading and seizing Brazilian lands is a different story. That would certainly be wrong.
As for squatters ... I can only speak for my own land. If somebody were squatting on my land, and I didn't want them there, I would indeed ask them to leave.
Where you are getting the "less than human" stuff I have no idea. |
OK Aimee, sorry for the less than human stuff.... hang over from lengthy debates with Beau on this outside the fora
But still, moving the idea of rights for thinking sentient beings....
I think the idea of using our own social contract on a wider basis, regarding sentient life, has sdinister undertones, and is grossly open to misuse.
Just look at the way we ( white people like you and I Aimee) treated the aboriginal peoples when we colonised other places.
The Native Americans, and Australian Aborigines didnt want involved in our social contracts.. so we ran roughshod over them, stole their land, decimated their numbers, and almost wiped out their cultures.